The Watchman On The Wall

Eph 6:12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Verse 13 Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.

Above, the USS Harry Truman with part of its strike force. On Wednesday, Nov. 25, Obama,
in a conversation with Turkish President Erdogan, said Turkey has the right to
defend its territory just like any other country. He also said that the Russian
Su-24 plane crossed the border and stayed in Turkey for 17 seconds. In other
words, it was 1.6 km inside Turkish territory. However, when it was hit by an
AIM-9X Sidewinder missile fired by the Turkish F-16, it was either right on the
border or already inside Syrian territory. The pilots apparently landed on the
Syrian side of the border and Moscow announced Wednesday that both were
"in safe hands."

No matter how the incident
is interpreted, it has generated five points that could lead to an aerial or
naval clash between US and Russian forces in the Syrian theater.

1. It was the first time
in 65 years, since 1950, that an American-made warplane from a NATO member
state shot down a Russian warplane with an American-made air-to-air missile.
This ramifications of this incident were no doubt seriously pondered at the
NATO session called after the event.

2. Obama did not only come
out in support of the Turkish version of the incident, but asserted that Putin
did not speak the truth when he said that the plane was 1 km inside Syrian
territory when it was shot down. The Russian president has not yet answered the
charge, but there is no doubt that he will.

3. The military clash between Russia and Turkey has now
become part of the personal contest between Obama and Putin over the future of
Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Obama says that as long as
Assad remains in power, not only will there be no agreement on how to end the
war in Syria, but it will be impossible to defeat ISIS.

Putin says, the exact
opposite: that it is impossible to end the war, or to defeat ISIS, without
Assad as president. After those goals are achieved, he says, Assad’s future may
be discussed.

4. On Tuesday night, Nov. 24, Putin made his next
move in the ramped-up chess match between the US and Russia in Syria.

The Russian general staff announced that the missile
cruiser Moskva, pictured above, one of the largest warships in the world, was ordered to
move closer to the Syrian coast opposite the port of Latakia, near the
Turkish border, and to “destroy any target posing danger.”

The Moskva serves
as a floating missile base with a complement of advanced S-300 ground-to-air
missiles.

This was a message for
Ankara that any Turkish warplane nearing Syria, or flying in the Hatay province
of southern Turkey - where the Su-24 incident occurred - was exposed to
being shot down by Russian missiles. The Russian general command also announced that Russian
warplanes would henceforth escort all Russian flights operating in Syrian
airspace, including bombers.

5. Although he backed
Erdogan verbally, Obama has not resorted to any military steps against Russia.
But he does have a card up his sleeve. The USS Harry S. Truman carrier with strike
force is on its way to the Mediterranean, having sailed from the US on
Nov.16.
The Truman will join the French aircraft carrier Charles de
Gaulle, whose planes started bombing ISIS targets in Iraq on Nov. 23.
If Obama orders the Truman to enter the Syrian theater, there will be
two warships from NATO member states facing Russian naval forces off
the Syrian coast, led by the missile carrier Moskva.

Videos leaked by Moscow reveal the presence of Iranian
F-14 and MiG-29 fighters in Syrian skies for the first time, no more than 159
km from Israel's border defenses. The Italian magazine “The Aviationist,”
showed them escorting heavy Russian bombers, including the Tupolev TU-160, as
protection against the Israeli Air Force.

Above, Baghdadi stands behind John McCain.

When French
President Francois Hollande declared war on ISIS and called the attack in Paris
an “act of war,” he gave the terrorist organization’s leader Abu Bakr
Al-Baghdadi an unexpected boost: respect as a head of state. Obama
was more cautious, declaring at the G-20 summit in Antalya that his country and
France would fight together against terror, without specifying how. That is
because no ruler of any Muslim country has dared declare total war on ISIS, or
wants to do so, and no Arab army is able or willing to undertake this war.

The geography of the six Paris locations targeted by
terrorists Friday night points to precise advance planning in support of a
primary target, namely, French President Francois Hollande, while at the same
time sowing bloody havoc in the French capital, frightening tourists away and
shaking the French governing system to the core. The outrage which took an
estimated toll of 127 to 153 lives took place without warning from any French
intelligence agency. Saturday, the French president accused ISIS of an act of
war against his country.

Russia's Foreign MInistry has
urged the country's citizens to defer all travel to Turkey and advised all
Russians currently in Turkey to depart as soon as possible. In a
statement on Thursday, the ministry said, "Due to continuing terrorist
threats in Turkey, we reiterate our recommendation that Russian citizens
refrain from visiting the Republic of Turkey, and we recommend that Russians
staying there for personal reasons return home."

Israel conducted the first
successful test of its 'Barak 8' missile, including the targeting and
destruction of another missile, on Thursday afternoon off the coast of the
central part of the country. The Barak 8, which contains some systems developed
jointly with the Indian military, is intended to shoot down targets such as
missiles, planes and drones, as well as defend offshore facilities such as oil
or gas platforms. The 4.5-meter-long, 275-kg weapon has a maximum speed of
Mach 2 and an effective range of 70 kilometers. Its radar, developed by
Israel's ELTA Systems, can function in any weather. The latest test was the
sixth in a series of previously-reported full tests since 2010.

Four developments on Thursday
are seen as a clear Israeli signal to Hizbollah that the IDF, especially its
air force and navy, will not hesitate to act against the terrorist
organization's infrastructure, facilities, and its weaponry defined by the
Israeli defense establishment as advanced weapons, both now and in the near
future, even though Hizbollah is seemingly being protected by
Moscow. The
four developments were 1. Russian President Vladimir Putin's unusually long
personal conversation with new Israeli ambassador to Moscow Zvi Hefetz
immediately after the envoy's presentation of credentials; 2. a statement by
senior Israeli Air Force officers that Israel will not ask Russia for
permission to fly in Syrian airspace; 3. a report on an Israeli military
exercise in which warplanes and attack helicopers carried out hundreds of
sorties simultaneously; and 4. the successful test of the Barak-8 missile.

Referring to the downing of a
Russian warplane by Turkish jets this week, Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan
said Thursday that "I think if there is a party that needs to apologize, it
is not us." "Those
who violated our airspace are the ones who need to apologize. Our pilots and
our armed forces, they simply fulfilled their duties" by shooting down the
Sukhoi Su-24, he said. Meanwhile,
during a visit to Cyprus, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said
"We don’t need to apologize on an occasion in which we are right,” adding,
“But we said on the phone that we are sorry,” referring to a conversation with
his Russian counterpart.

A Biblical
discovery, above, puts to rest one of the largest archaeological riddles concerning
Jerusalem, namely, the
location of the Greek Seleucid imperial fortress that Antiochus Epiphanes
(215-164 BC) It is was built to rule the city and oversee Jewish
activities on the Temple Mount. The fortress was eventually destroyed by the Hasmonean Maccabees as they
overthrew the Greek occupation. Excavations at the Givati Parking Lot
dig site, located in the City of David national park, have been ongoing for a
decade. The Elad Foundation manages the national park and funds the digs, which
have revealed numerous finds that are on display to the public at the site. But
the location of Antiochus's
fortress, which is mentioned in the Book of the Maccabees and the
writings of Josephus, has remained elusive. However, according to researchers,
in recent months decisive evidence locating the fortress has been found in the
form of a section of ancient wall that is estimated to be the base of a tower
four meters (13 feet) wide and 20 meters (65 feet) long, replete with a glacis artificial slope.
The glacis, built adjacent to the wall, is a defensive element made out of
layers of dust, stone and pitch, and meant to keep away attackers. This slope
reached as far as the Tyropoeon Valley that crossed the ancient city of
Jerusalem, and served as an additional defense.

Ballista rocks,
bronze arrow heads and lead sling stones were found at the site with the sign of the trident on them,
the symbol of Antiochus Epiphanes's rule, bearing testimony to the
battles in which the Hasmoneans triumphed and routed the Greeks. Historical
records indicate the fortress
was manned by salaried Greek soldiers as well as Jewish Hellenists who betrayed
their people, and further detail how the forces in the fortress caused
great suffering to the Jewish residents of Jerusalem. However, in 141 BC after a long siege to
starve out the Greeks, Shimon the Hasmonean was able to conquer the fortress
and force the Greeks into surrender. According to archaeologists Dr.
Doron Ben-Ami, Yana Tchekhanovets and Salome Cohen, who are directing the
excavation on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), the new
discovery gives a new understanding of the history. "This sensational
discovery allows us for the first time to reconstruct the layout of the
settlement in the city, on the eve of the Maccabean uprising in 167 BC," said the
researchers. "The new archaeological finds indicate the establishment of a
well-fortified stronghold that was constructed on the high bedrock cliff
overlooking the steep slopes of the City of David hill." "This
stronghold controlled all means of approach to the Temple atop the Temple
Mount, and cut the Temple off from the southern parts of the city. The numerous
coins ranging in date from the reign of Antiochus IV (Antiochus Epiphanes) to
that of Antiochus VII and the large number of wine jars (amphorae) that were
imported from the Aegean region to Jerusalem, which were discovered at the
site, provide evidence of the citadel’s chronology, as well as the non-Jewish
identity of its inhabitants."

Every year at Thanksgiving I’m reminded
of the holiday’s origin, the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles. It was the crowning
event in Israel’s cycle of fall feasts that also included Rosh Hashanah and Yom
Kippur. It was a celebration of the harvest, of God’s mercy in forgiving their
sins for another year, and a remembrance of the time when He lived among them
in the wilderness, setting them apart as His people.

When the Pilgrims
had experienced their first successful harvest in the New World, they decided
to give thanks for the Lord’s provision, even though half of them had died in
the year since their arrival. Inviting the neighboring natives to join them,
they held a three-day celebration patterned after their knowledge of the Feast
of Tabernacles.

The Jews were about to enter the Promised
Land. The Lord had Moses tell them that in the future they were to set aside a
tithe (1/10th) of their production each year and bring it, along with all their
other voluntary offerings, to the place He would choose for them to worship
Him. They were to eat them there in a gigantic national feast. Think of it,
1/10th of all the lambs, goats and cattle born that year, 1/10th of the grain,
vegetables and fruit from through out the land, breads and cakes and barrels of
wine.

Each
fall, after the harvest, everyone in Israel came to Jerusalem to celebrate. It
was the biggest Thanksgiving dinner ever. The sounds of laughing and singing and
the aroma of exotic foods filled the air for a whole week as the people
gave thanks to God for blessing them (Deut.
12:8-12, 17-19).

Every third year they gave their tithes to the
Levites and stayed home. This assured that there was always enough to take care
of the Levites (who were the teachers and doctors and lawyers and had no land
to till) and all the widows and orphans, the indigent, and the aliens among
them. Each year they celebrated His provision and the Lord blessed them with
more so that their abundance grew. He commanded them to do this every year so
that He could“bless them in all the works of their hands.”(Deut.
14:22-29) By setting the Lord’s share aside and then using it
to give thanks to Him, they found that each year their blessing increased.

But
after their return from the Babylonian captivity, the Lord caught them cheating
Him. He warned them that they had put themselves under a curse because they
weren’t setting aside their tithes properly. They were giving the Lord their
worst, not their best, and even this was being done resentfully as if
it was a great burden. Because of this they were not being blessed but were
working harder and harder for less and less.“Return to me and I’ll return to you,”He told them.“Bring
the whole tithe into the storehouse. Test me in this and see if I don’t throw
open the flood gates of Heaven and pour our so much blessing that you won’t
have room enough for it.”(Malachi 1 & 3:7-10)

And that’s always the way it is with the Lord.
No hard feelings, no resentment, just return to Him and He’ll return to you.
All is forgiven, because His mercies are new every morning. We can always begin
right where we are and He’ll respond as if the past had never happened.

So by these two passages we learn the
rules of what I call God’s Blessing Game. We show our gratitude by giving God
His due and He blesses us with more. We increase our giving and He increases
His blessing, allowing us to give still more. And on it goes. But when we
become stingy or resentful and try to short-change God, then the blessings are
curtailed accordingly.

The Israelites proved beyond all doubt that by
following the rules of the game they could win every time. And they
demonstrated the futility of cheating. But is there any New Testament version
of God’s Blessing Game? Of course there is, because God is the same yesterday
today and forever.Luke 6:38tells us“Give,
and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and
running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it
will be measured to you.”

Show a little gratitude and get a little
blessing. Show a little more and the blessings increase. The more generous we
become the more abundant our blessings will be. Paul gave us the ultimate
outcome in2 Cor. 9:11.You’ll
be made rich in every way so you can be generous on every occasion.Every time we feel moved to help
someone out, we’ll find the money’s there to do it. And it will all result in
thanksgiving to God.

Lots of people overlook the last half of
this promise, and find that because they do it doesn’t come true. The Lord
didn’t promise to make us rich so that we could have bigger houses and more
cars, He promised to make us rich so that we could be more generous. As one
commentator has put it, “God’s
blessings are not to increase our standard of living. but to increase our
standard of giving.” We’re supposed to be a distribution center
for His blessings, not a warehouse. The blessings we receive are supposed
to flow through to others, not stop with us. The riches we store up are for
Heaven, not Earth. Good thing too, because here they only last a little while,
but there they last forever. (Matt.
6:19-20)

This is God’s Blessing Game. It’s a game that
He developed and that everyone can win. The rules are clear and don’t ever
change. We establish the level of blessings we’ll receive by the gratitude we
express through our generosity toward others. The Lord loves a cheerful
giver and will reward us accordingly.

So the Pilgrims decided to take a lesson from
the Israelites. They took the little they had and gave thanks, inviting the
natives in their midst to join them to show their generosity. In return the
Lord blessed them. And so it began. To one degree or another, it’s been going on ever since and look how
we’ve been blessed. Americans are the richest people on Earth. If you
don’t believe that, try living somewhere else, anywhere else, for a while.

It’s a testimony to God’s understanding
of the human condition that the Thanksgiving Holiday’s roots have been
obscured. You see, he longs to bless us but the rules of the game require an
expression of gratitude on our part. By allowing Thanksgiving to be perceived
as a secular holiday instead of a religious one, He can receive our thanks
without risking the same demand that He be taken out of the loop as there is
for Christmas. There’s no public outcry by the pagans, no suits by the ACLU,
and no attacks by other religions against its origin. Very few people are even
aware of the Biblical roots of this “American” holiday. But being devout
Christians, the Pilgrims knew Who they were thanking, and why. You and I do,
too. It’s our little secret. Ours and God’s.

I pray that your Thanksgiving was a happy one,
and that through out the holidays you’ll remember the rules of God’s Blessing
Game and always play to win. Selah 11-26-11.

Thursday, November 26, 2015

This is from my good friend Jeanette:May God bless you and yours this
Thanksgiving

Count your blessings
instead of your crosses.

Count your gains instead
of your losses.

Count your joys instead of
your woes.

Count your friends instead
of your foes.

Count your smiles instead
of your tears.

Count your courage instead
of your fears.

Count your full years
instead of your lean.

Count your kind deeds
instead of your mean.

Count your health instead
of your wealth.

Count on God instead of
yourself.

A Thanksgiving Message
by Jack Kelley

Shout for joy to the
LORD, all the earth. Worship the LORD with gladness; come before him with
joyful songs. Know that the LORD is God. It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his
courts with praise; give thanks
to him and praise his name. For the LORD is good and his love
endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations. (Psalm 100)

Each year on the 4th
Thursday of November we celebrate Thanksgiving Day in the US. It’s a
holiday begun by the early settlers to express their gratitude to God for a
bountiful harvest, and it’s patterned
after the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles.

After the harvest,
Israelites from all over the country would gather in Jerusalem for a week long
celebration. This was to commemorate the time God had spent with them in the
wilderness and to give thanks for another good harvest. All year they saved up
their tithes, the first born of their flocks and herds, the first sheaves of
grain, the first grapes, figs, olives and other fruit and vegetables and
brought it all to Jerusalem in the fall where they cooked and ate everything in
a national celebration of praise (Deut.
12:5-7).

After surviving a very
difficult year in the new world, the Pilgrims of New England instituted a
similar, though much smaller, thanksgiving feast, again with the intent of
praising God. This
event finally became a national holiday in the US in 1863, but it took until
1941 to settle on the 4th Thursday of November as its official observance.

My parents made sure we
never forgot that it was the Lord who provided for us and so Thanksgiving was a
religious observance in our house. Prayers were offered and each family member gave thanks
to the Lord for all the good things we had received.

You may say to yourself,
“My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for
me.” But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the
ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your
forefathers, as it is today (Deut. 8:17-18).

We believed, as the
Bible tells us, that even though my parents worked hard all year, it was the
Lord who had given them their strength and ability and created opportunities
for them. In these verses God reminded the Israelites (and us) not to forget
that. After all, lots of people work hard all their lives and never seem
to get anywhere. We weren’t well off, but we gave thanks for what
we had because we knew where our blessings came from.

As an adult I got
involved in the self-development field and began learning about the “god
within”, an internal force I was told I could use to maximize my “creative
potential” for success. This appealed to my ego and made me seem like the
master of my own fate. I forgot all about the Lord’s admonition to remember Him.
When I was born again at age 40 I finally saw that this “god within” was only
my own self determination. It was really the “God without” who had been
blessing me all along even though I was taking all the credit. In one of
my first prayers for forgiveness, I asked the Lord to forgive me for giving
myself credit for things that were gifts from Him. As I was praying about this,
the phrase “God Without” kept repeating itself in my mind. What was the Lord
trying to tell me?

I believe He was saying
that the word “without” applies to lots of things where He is concerned, and as
I continued to pray several of them came to mind.

If you’re looking for
things to be thankful for (even if you live in a country where Thanksgiving
isn’t celebrated) try some of these “withouts” the Lord brought to my
mind. I’m sure He will bring even more to yours as you focus on them.

Love Without
Limits …For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son,
that whoever believed in Him would not perish but have everlasting life(John 3:16).

Forgiveness
Without Question …Ask and you
will receive. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to
you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds, and to him who
knocks the door will be opened (Matt 7:7-8). If we confess our sins, he is faithful and
just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)

Performance
Without Exception …All that the
Father gives me will come to me and whoever comes to me I will never drive
away. And this is the will of Him Who sent me, that I shall lose none of all
that He has given me, but raise them up on the last day (John 6:37, 39).

Promise Without
Equivocation …I make known
the end from the beginning, from ancient times what is still to come. I say,
“My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please … what I have said,
that will I bring about and what I have planned, that will I do” (Isaiah 46:10-11).

Blessings Without
Number …You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country (wherever
you are). The fruit of your womb will be blessed (your
children), and the crops of your land and the young of your livestock-the
calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks (your work). Your
basket and your kneading trough will be blessed (you’ll have plenty of
food). You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out (when
you come home at night and when you leave in the morning) (Deut 28:3-6).

Mercy Without
Measure ….It is because
of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassion fails
not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness (Lamentations 3:22-23).

Faithfulness
Without Failing …Know therefore
that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of
love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands (Deut. 7:9). And we know that
in all things, God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been
called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28).

Redemption Without
Retraction …“Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and
believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has
crossed over from death to life (John 5:24). For my
Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall
have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day” (John 6:40).

Salvation Without
Merit …But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he
saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his
mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy
Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so
that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope
of eternal life (Titus 3:4-7).

Grace Without
Guilt …Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old
has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself
through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was
reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against
them. (2 Corinthians 5:17-19)

So in a time when
mankind has all but forgotten that the Lord is the Giver of every good and
perfect gift, the Author of all our victories, who arranges every opportunity
and fashions every blessing, these “withouts” might serve as good reminders to
give thanks where thanks is due.

And now may “The
LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face shine upon you and be
gracious to you; the LORD turn his face toward you and give you peace.” (Numbers 6:24-26) Happy Thanksgiving from Your Watchman on the
Wall, Al